Slow Burning Fire
by Kuro49
Summary: Noir!AU. Erik/Charles. Charles is not quite mad and Erik has bodies to hide.


I am sure a Noir!AU Erik/Charles is nothing new. But yeah, inspiration struck and it came out feeling like a much darker version of the film, _Lucky Number Slevin_ but with much less plot and quirky lines. Still, I had so much fun. I don't own.

XXX

**Slow Burning Fire**

XXX

I. _It's not just me, it's you too._

He peels off the blood soaked leather and throws it into the fireplace. It burns a little like human flesh, and oh he would know exactly how that is like. Pungent, sweet. Magnificent as the leather catches fire.

"Chess, my friend?" The voice comes from the shadows and even with the curtains thrown back, Charles is standing well against the walls to remain in the dark.

"Unfortunately, I'll probably make a poor opponent tonight." He takes the other leather glove off and feeds it to the fireplace before turning to the man with little shards of metal blooming in his lower back and a slight limp to his stance.

"How about a drink before anything else?" Erik asks before he hears the sound of a bottle opening. He turns and watches as Charles drops three ice cubes in their glass. "Scotch?"

"Unless you have something else in mind."

"You would know otherwise, wouldn't you?" Erik taps a finger to his temple and smiles, toothily and unnerving like something has long since snapped within his mind. But this is him at his easiest, him when he is relaxed.

"I try to give people a choice, a chance to do what they like." He shrugs and it is in the way his shoulders round that makes Erik wants to pull him close and kiss the nonchalant from his smooth English tongue.

"How is that working for you?"

Charles smiles, and it is boyish like always. "I don't often last the night."

"That's a little different than when you're with me."

"Well," he hands over the glass and his face is tinted a flickering red from the fire. "They aren't you."

They kiss over the clink of their glass. And the fire dances in their eyes.

II. _You're the one._

It is raining. And it always rains in this city, the one the gods have damned to hell. There are pitch black gutters that seeps a certain brand of filth they know by heart and flickering streetlamps casting ugly yellow shadows over their face.

The ground is wet and they are not compulsive.

Charles, at times, may be but Erik grounds him. Raven doesn't say Charles is also the only physical weight keeping Erik from taking off as well. But Raven doesn't say a lot of things, she keeps herself silent and invisible, she has seen what men are capable of, Charles makes sure of that. And when they round the corner, their cheeks look black and purple in the dark.

Like the first blossom of bruises.

_Shaw is dead but he has a telepath. We suspect—_

"This is the right way?"

"Yes."

Erik answers when he levels the gun to the centre of Charles' back.

And he pulls the trigger with his bare hands.

No black leather gloves this time. He wants Charles' blood on his hands.

_He won't be missed. There are too many telepaths in this city anyway._

III. _I wear my scars like a 17 years fresh tattoo, shameless and in love._

Charles is in recovery for nearly a month. (28 days, 32 minutes and 14 seconds too long.) A month, if it is February.

"Erik."

He doesn't expect to see him. And he doesn't. But he does.

"Raven."

His light brown hair grows out into a dark maroon and his fair skin flutters pink, red, purple, blue. And he is her. She has blue skin and dying eyes he can't look away from. And it's devastating. But Charles smiles and it is full of pain.

They don't know why they keep doing this.

"How are you?"

"Better than most." _I can still walk._

"That's good." There is something close to despair, Charles wants to soothe her but it is catching and he lets her bubble over in sadness. "I can't find him, Charles. He disappeared, he is gon—"

"Erik is across the street from the hospital." Charles closes his eyes.

But this town isn't the one they used to be. This one has sunlight, and a heart that beats.

IV. _You're the one, still my one and only._

He sees him again, four days later.

Because Erik has a terrible habit of never keeping away. He is a moth and Charles is his flame. It won't be soon but it will happen, and when it does, he'll be a pile of ashes at Charles' feet. The plastic chair is uncomfortable when he takes a seat in the hospital room.

"You pulled the trigger."

"You're glad."

"Oh yes," Charles remembers the feel of his own gun in his hand, skin warmed metal ready to fire, Emma is wrong, and right. The first bullet is for Erik, the second would have been for himself, "otherwise, you'd be six feet under, somewhere."

Because the Brotherhood doesn't give up and he has worked under the Professor for long enough. It is a matter of chance and courtesy; he also hopes there are enough people out in these badlands that owe the two of them enough favors for this lifetime.

"I would prefer the sea."

"I'll remember that."

He pulls him in for a kiss.

V. _You keep me running for a glimpse._

Neither of them is crazy, not clinically declared at least.

But Erik is cynical and paranoid. He has a gun beneath his pillow, another on the bedside table, and then one more in the drawer over on his side of the bed. Not to mention all the metal he has in the room. He thinks the world is out to kill him and more than half the time, he isn't wrong.

Charles rolls over in his sleep and drapes an arm over Erik's waist, too easy and unfamiliar for the mind to register after years and years of loneliness.

There is a click as Erik cocks the gun he withdraws from beneath his pillow. Their eyes are still closed when Erik positions the barrel to the other's head.

"…Erik."

The metal is cold when he bats the gun away. Erik snaps his eyes open and his heart is at his throat. It doesn't begin to cover it but in the dark, it is more than enough.

"…Sorry."

"…Mmm, don't be," Charles murmurs and pulls him closer, press a light kiss to his neck and says, "just sleep, love."

When Erik almost forgets he is in love, Charles stops and gives him what he needs.

Most days, this goes both ways.

VI. _It is the little things you lose on the way that make you whole._

X works for someone called the Professor.

And Max Eisenhardt works odd jobs the Brotherhood gives him.

They don't know each other and their paths don't cross. It is a different neighbourhood where they live, a separate sort of lifestyle that blurs when a man by the name Sebastian Shaw stirs up enough trouble in the city.

Big transactions are made, people get involved and people die. Some are picked off the streets, some keep their mouths shut, and some rather important people get rich. The smoke bellows in the night and something that is starting to resemble bloodlust is lurking right around the corner.

Both groups take notice and a temporary truce is formed.

000

"I want you to work with an associate of an old friend of mines." The Professor says in his chair and the oversized mansion at the outskirts of this city always makes him give ways to whatever the man asks of him.

"Magnus' boys? I'm sure we can have fun."

"He might not have the same definition as you."

"I'll see what I can do to change his mind then." X smiles and picks up the file on Sebastian Shaw. The fire in the Professor's office gives a loud crack as he leaves. He doesn't turn back.

000

"The Professor is sending one of his own."

"I don't do partners, Magnus." Max warns with a scowl and adds. "Sebastian Shaw is mines."

"The boy probably doesn't care for Shaw. Ask nicely and he might let you have the kill." The room is nearly empty except for the broad metal desk, there are no files or details for the boy with the feral anger because Max already knows everything anyone needs to know about Shaw.

Magnus doesn't ask but Max's face already says it all.

"I don't do nice."

He doesn't tell him X is a telepath either.

"Good luck then."

VII. _I will mark your heart with a criss-cross._

The first time they sleep together, Max Eisenhardt isn't surprised when X moans out Erik instead. He has his suspicions and he isn't stupid. The man is a telepath who can wield a gun the old fashion way just as well as he can, there is nothing private about this affair, not when the man is comfortable enough to let on his mistakes.

The sheets look gray, pooling around their waists in the dark, their legs stretch out to tangle at the ankle and the gray darkens where the nasty white light from the bathroom don't reach. There is sweat on his brow and a lingering hand caressing his wrist.

Max is a dead man's name and Erik Lehnsherr is a secret he keeps close to heart.

"This hardly seems fair."

Reciprocity isn't high on their lists. But X has eyes that seem to glow blue with mock sincerity and he can't imagine that he, himself, cares. But X may have grazed his heart in the process when he reached out, careless and curious, for his name and left a mark that can't be healed.

Not that he minds another scar.

"I'm a telepath, we never play fair." The blue seems to soften and Max leans over the side of the bed to fish a cigarette from inside his coat. When he sits back, the telepath pushes him flat against the mattress with a hand on his chest and there is a lighter looming in front of the ghost of a smile. "But if it makes you feel any better…"

The burst of the flame ignites them both.

"…It's Charles."

Erik watches as the name match the face and Charles' lashes cast shadows when he blinks. He sucks the cigarette to life and floats the lighter out of their face.

"And the X?"

"Xavier."

When Charles leans down to suck a dark bruising red into the junction of his throat, Erik breathes out around the smoke.

"Exotic."

VIII. _You don't get to lie when I can read your mind._

He has diamond fingers pressed closely to his throat.

"I know who you are."

"Emma, love." He raises a hand to her wrist and gently pries her fingers away. "I know exactly who you are just as well."

There is a certain kind of truce when they can both see: she will leave with Erik's past in tow and Max Eisenhardt will be dead for good. In return, Charles will take the fall and the city will be cleaned of Shaw's work once and for all. (The man's body has been burned the night Erik and him found him on his private boat at the edge of the shorelines.)

"It won't be pretty."

Emma Frost remembers when Max Eisenhardt used to be alive. But the memories aren't enough to guilt her to take the blame, not even for the man she loved until everything perished into a slow burning fire that flickers in her eyes. She won't underestimate Charles Xavier and only wishes love is enough for the other telepath.

"Darling, nothing is ever pretty in this town."

She doesn't drop her pistol in his hands. She knows he will bring a gun for shows, maybe even his favorite M1911, but he won't pull the trigger. Not when the man standing behind him can control metal.

"Thank you."

"This isn't for you, Emma."

"Of course not. But if I am Erik, I would genuinely be afraid."

Charles smiles. "Just flaunt your diamond ass as you leave."

She is a mutant. Her skin can turn into cutting diamond. And she has never been a telepath in her life or so Charles has convinced everyone who once knew. The sun never really breaks through and it begins to rain.

IX. _Because I love you, and this is kind of the only way I know how._

X has been dead for years.

The man Erik Lehnsherr currently lives with is called Charles Xavier.

But they are not so far removed. The upgrades to machine guns and the resulting dirty blood-stained bills still mean the world. So yes, it is really nothing at all.

Erik drains the scotch before he sits down in an armchair. The smell of burning leather is still in the room and he lights up a cigarette before he asks. "Can I use our car?"

"How many?" Leaning back against the wall, Charles sips slowly, relishing the alcohol as he asks with his back to the windows.

"Three." And the way Charles is staring at him, openly, from atop his glass makes Erik stand back up.

"Logan has a truck."

"I don't like Logan."

Three broad strides and Erik has him crowded against the window. He takes the alcohol from his hands and Charles almost protests when he watches Erik tip it back. Instead, he takes the cigarette from Erik's lips, takes a drag, and only breathes out when Erik lowers his head to capture his lips in a kiss.

Smoke curling against their alcohol-stung tongues.

"Logan isn't the truck and you aren't using the trunk of our car." Charles warns as he grasps at Erik's shoulder, tongue moving languidly as he waits for Erik's defense.

Erik pulls back, just a breath away, and dead men be damned. He wants to take what is being handed to him. "I can get two in the back and one on the floor of the backseat." Charles smirks.

"I'll call Logan for you." Charles says in between groaning appreciatively when Erik winds an arm around his waist to put a hand on his lower back.

Erik tugs lightly and Charles pushes off the walls and further into his arms. "I still don't like him." He whispers as he presses lingering kisses behind Charles' ear.

Charles ignores him to stub out the cigarette against a spare set of leather gloves Erik has lying on the table next to them. The smirk doesn't dim, rather it stretches even wider when Erik hisses like it is his own skin.

Erik and Charles like it here. In this city, it doesn't always rain. The sun breaks from behind the clouds and the dark doesn't always mean blood will spill.

X. _I know what you are, you're just like me._

He introduces himself as X. They meet in a quiet bar with horrible beer they try to pass of as German. And it is a horrible cliché.

"Max Eisenhardt."

His name is a dead man's name. And he has died too times before. But it isn't something he can't handle, he always gets back up, metal bullets falling from his clothes like dust. And they don't shake hands.

"You bend metal."

"And you?"

"Mine's are just parlour tricks."

X has blue eyes and dark brown hair. He wiggles his fingers and the gloves he wears are worn and fingerless, unlike the soft black leather Max likes. When they are treated, blood cascades and when they aren't, the blood soaks. It is lovely either way.

The bartender brings them another horrid beer without a sound. And he makes an intelligent guess.

"Telepath then."

"Groovy, you're smart too."

They don't know what they expect but it is nothing like the real thing.

XXX Kuro

Yes, this is the one where the Professor, Magnus, Erik Lehnsherr, Charles Xavier, Max Eisenhardt, and X are not really the same people. Questions? Feel free to ask, I know I left a lot of details to the dark. ;)


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